from the stop-digging dept

We had already suggested that Funnyjunk's lawyer, Charles Carreon, should stop digging after finding himself in quite the internet hole for threatening Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, over a scathing page mocking Funnyjunk. Inman's response was over the top, but was also pretty clearly protected free speech, including either factual statements or opinion. You would think that Carreon, who styles himself as a protector of the First Amendment, would recognize that. Yet, in response, Carreon has said that he was going to seek to shut down Inman's fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and National Wildlife Foundation.

And, now, it appears that Carreon is continuing to act petulantly after the internet suggested he stop digging. Lots of people pointed out that Carreon pulled down the "contact" page on his own website after the original story went viral, but as some have noticed he's replaced it with a "temporarily unavailable" page that accuses Inman of instigating "security attacks":

If you can't read it, it says:

Due to security attacks instigated by Matt Inman, this function has been temporarily disabled.

Really? Security attacks? And "instigated by Matt Inman"? Inman didn't instigate security attacks. He pointed out why he felt that your poorly thought out legal threat letter was, in fact, poorly thought out -- and he turned that into a force for good by setting up a fundraiser for some very popular charities (which, again, you tried to shut down). Considering how freely Carreon tossed around the threat of "defamation" claims against Inman for what he wrote about Funnyjunk, you'd think that he would be more careful before accusing Inman of instigating "security attacks" on his own website. I doubt Inman would fire back with a defamation lawsuit -- and you could argue which side of the defamation line this claim falls on -- but if we were to weigh the two, it sure seems like this statement from Carreon is a lot closer to defamation than anything that Inman said about Funnyjunk.

By the way, it's worth pointing out that the top blog post on Carreon's site is actually all about Chris Dodd's bad reaction to the internet rising up against him in the SOPA/PIPA fight. Carreon might want to read the first sentence of that post and figure out which character he's playing in this drama (or is it farce?):

The kittens kicked ass on Hollywood, and Hollywood, like every frustrated bully, is sounding like a sore loser.

So Carreon is defaming himself?

Re: So Carreon is defaming himself?

Problem is, if you are already the subject of hatred, contempt, ridicule, and especially obloquy (love that one), then it's hard to show any damages. There's case law on that too. (I think it had something to do with a bookie or pimp not having a reputation that could be further harmed.)

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I think it would be better put to say that people generally hate or distrust lawyers as a group, but not necessarily on an individual basis(until they do something boneheaded like Carreon here anyway).

It's generally for the same reason people may be rather wary of police, while the majority is almost certainly composed of good people, the 'bad apples' tend to ruin, and seriously so, people's opinion of their profession and those that practice it.

Re: Finally, we'll answer the old question

I remember visiting a site that used Google maps to show you the exact opposite point on the globe of any position on the planet you selected. If I dug a hole from my home to the opposite point, I would have ended up in the middle of the ocean. Yikes.

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Lawyers only have the power to ARGUE. They can't force the judge to do anything, they can't make up evidence (there's probably more cases of police than lawyers presenting fake evidence).

Lawyers argue, period.

When you hire a lawyer, you WANT him to do his best to represent you. You don't want him telling you "hey I could win this, but I think you don't really deserve to win so I won't represent you to the best of my ability".

There are two kinds of lawyers who take a lot of heat from the popular opinion: defense lawyers for helping criminals, and civil suit attorneys for suing people for outrageous amounts of money.

In both cases, it's unfair to get upset the attorneys.
Defense attorney need to do the best job they can to guarantee that the police and prosecutor put up a solid case. That's the only way to keep innocent people out of jail. Two things to consider:

1: If a defense attorney can get his client acquitted, then it means either of two things: a) there was not sufficient evidence against his client, no matter how strongly society believes otherwise or b) the police botched the investigation (client got off on a technicality), which means the police either violated the suspect's rights when they couldn't be sure he was guilty, or the evidence they gathered could be contaminated, possibly have been planted there.
If you people ever have a power-tripping cop planting drugs in your car, you need to realize that the only way you can prove police wrong-doing might be by arguing that the search of your car during which they "found" the drugs was illegal to begin with. The moment we find that the police made a mistake during an investigation, we can't be sure there weren't other mistakes.

2: If defense attorneys decided to be nice and put up weaker defenses just so criminals don't escape justice, the police would soon do a poorer job too. Because why bother with evidence when you know the guy won't get a proper defense? A lot of cops wouldn't care THAT much about getting hard evidence when they think they know who the perpetrator is.

If you guys really have a problem with attorneys doing their job the best they can, blame the law or the judges.
I'd rather have a rapist roaming the streets than being thrown in jail for 20 years for a crime I didn't commit because the police couldn't bother to investigate my wife's lover when she was killed.
And if somebody has wronged me and owes me 20k in damages/reparation, you bet I'd want an attorney who'd be aggressive so that I don't waste too much time and money in court, getting the justice I deserve.

Let's make a law that only innocent people can have an attorney. That's what you guys want, isn't it? I'm sure that would be easy to implement, we could just judge people before we give them an attorney, to decide if they're guilty or not. Oh wait...

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Lawyers are maggots. They thrive on human misery and are motivated only by greed. We may need them as a society, but when you start seeing too many it's a good indication that something is amiss. To counter one of your points, lawyers can only argue and judges decide - what do most judges do before they become judges? Speaking as a software developer who has been threatened by more than one sleazy lawyer over software patents from people I've never heard of, every one could vanish tomorrow and the world would be a better place for it.

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To counter all of your points:

1) these sleazy lawyers aren't working on your own. I have no standing to sue you for violating Edison's patents. Only Edison can. If you're being sued for patent infringement, it's because somewhere out there, the sleazy lawyer has a client who, like you, is a software engineer who invented something new and got a patent on it. If your work doesn't infringe his patent, then the client, as the technical expert, is in a far better position to realize that the suit has no merit than the attorney, who for the most part needs to rely on his client's honesty and the technical advisers working for the firm (these advisers are also more likely to be software developers like you, and not attorneys themselves).

2) "Attorneys thrive on human misery"

The same can be said for police, soldiers, trauma surgeons, psychiatrists, and software developers, unless of course you provide your code for free and live off of welfare.

There are bad people out there in the world that do bad things to good people. If you read enough slashdot or techdirt, you'll find that software developers comprise a decent number of those bad people. There are also a lot of people who make a living by stopping these bad people, or protecting the good people, or fixing the damage these bad people cause. There are a lot of attorneys working for bad people like you, but there are far more who are prosecuting criminals, fighting for civil rights, helping creative people protect their inventions, or defending good people against bad law suits.

I'm a transactional attorney who served in the Marines before college. I pretty much help companies draft contracts that are clear and fair to all parties involved. When the economy is good, we get more business, and I get bigger bonuses. When I was on active duty, I was lucky to avoid any real wars, but if I had served a few years later, during Desert Storm, I probably would have had more chances for fast promotion. So in terms of these two phases of my career, the lawyer-me probably benefits financially a lot more from human prosperity, and not misery. So please, tell everyone here how you think U.S. service personel are greedy bastards who thrive human misery.

3) Correlation does not equal causation. Honestly, you can make the argument that when you see a lot of software developers, that's a sign something is amiss--I'm pretty sure that the months leading up to the dot-com bubble and bust saw a huge rise in their numbers. When you have a disease break out, you see a rise in doctors and epidemiologists. By your standards, they're a sign that something is amiss and they're thriving on human misery, too. Doesn't mean they're all bad people.

4) Your counterpoint actually fails entirely because it misses the point of the argument you respond to. All judges should be former attorneys or at least law professors--if you don't understand the law, how can you interpret it? The point is, once the judges robes go on, your duties and priorities change. Attorney A is paid by client A, and his job is to present evidence/arguments that favor client A, with no obligation to raise arguments that help client B, no matter how obvious they are. The judge is paid by the state, with no stake in whether client A or client B wins. His job is to examine the case as impartially as possible and to determine a just outcome. If he can't be impartial (i.e., he once worked as an attorney for client B), he can't judge the case.

Moreover, with regard to the specific point, it's completely asinine to get upset at judges because they were once attorneys over things like defending criminals because the vast majority of judges come from the prosecution side (district/county/state/federal attorneys) or from law school faculties. It's pretty hard to be confirmed as a judge when you were once a personal injury attorney, or made your fortune defending rich criminals from DUI charges.

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I do not think that anyone here is objecting to the right of individuals to hire an attorney, but rather the abuse of this power. A lawyer has a right to turn down a ridiculous civil suit such as this one. Greed and hubris are the upsetting factors here.

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As a practicing attorney, I will tell you right now that you're wrong.

There are certainly lawyers who lie for their clients. They make us all look bad, and it should be much easier than it is to have them disbarred. But we all took an oath that says, among other things, that every suit, every motion, every document we file to the court must have, as far as we know, a basis in fact.

Most attorneys I know are scrupulously faithful to this oath for three reasons. First, and most obviously, is that getting caught means the end of your career in a state, there aren't all that many other states to fall back on, and frankly, most of them are crapholes I'd rather avoid. When your client is dishonest, you lie for him, and you win, it's hard to get caught, but as soon as you lose, they tend to turn against you, which likely means the end of your career.

Second, most attorneys care about their reputation because they tend to specialize, meaning they'll see the same attorneys and the same judges over and over again. When you have a choice (in contract stuff, for example), most honest attorneys will recommend that their clients avoid dealing with people represented by notoriously dishonest lawyers. Even when you don't (i.e., getting sued, dealing with a defense attorney), your reputation has a huge impact on how the judge deals with you. When the judge is preoccupied wondering which of your filings are a lie this time, expect to fight an uphill battle the entire case.

The third, which is something you may not understand, is that a lot of us are naturally honorable people who take our oath seriously. If you look at practicing attorneys, you'll find that a lot of us are either 1) ex-military who became attorneys through the GI bill or the JAG program or 2) idealistic lefties/righties who wanted to fight for civil rights, the environment, pro-life rights, pro-choice rights, prosecuting criminals, etc. One thing these disparate groups have in common is that they tend to value their own integrity more than financial gain.

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"Every lawyer, at least once in every case, feels himself crossing a line that he doesn't really mean to cross... it just happens... And if you cross it enough times it disappears forever. And then you're nothin but another lawyer joke. Just another shark in the dirty water."
-- Rainmaker

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A lawyer does not just argue - they are bound in some actions both legally and morally. Past that fairly generic and vague junk though, you are all the way around the bend if you're using that to validate Carreon's actions.

Carreon is on the plaintiff's side in this - Talking about "only defending the innocent" is completely unrelated to the issue. The appropriate metaphor would be that we still prosecute crimes committed against criminals, but that's not particularly relevant; I just want to make it clear that we are in no way suggesting that lawyers refuse to defend "guilty" people in condemning Carreon

Second, this is a civil case, and an utterly meritless one at that. Aside from the outright absurd claim about the pterodactyl, which is a whole bucket of crazy all on its own, every law cited is irrelevant and the sole purpose of mentioning them is to sound scary and legal (if you are at all familiar with the Lanham act then seeing it brought up in that context was truly spit-take worthy). Finally, the defamation claim is meritless all on its own, as FunnyJunk is in fact committing copyright infringement by not complying with the DMCA.

So, the upshot is: Charles Carreon seems to be either malicious or ruinously incompetent as an attorney for allowing his client to take this path. In either case, while I would never forego the privilege of an attorney were I accused of a crime I had committed, you can bet your ass I wouldn't want someone like Charles Carreon even remotely involved in my defense*

*he isn't a criminal defense attorney, obviously, but were he to change his specialty I still wouldn't trust him to represent my best interests given his actions here

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A well written defense of attorneys, except you're forgetting one thing: attorneys who file frivolous demand letters/motions/suits because they know/hope the defendant can't afford to defend against them.

An attorney has a duty to zealously defend his client, but he is an also an officer of the court sworn not to subborn purjury or to make any filings with no basis in law/fact. For example, according to the rules of professional ethics, a defense attorney who knows his client is guilty can have his client plea not guilty (because, interpreting the facts most favorably to his client, the police didn't meet the burden of proof for a guilty verdict), but he cannot put his client on the stand if he knows that the client will present false testimony (for example, making up in alibi.) In practice, this is really hard to police, but it doesn't change the fact that this is part of an attorney's duty.

The same goes for civil litigation. There's nothing wrong with playing hardball within limits of what is legal in order to get a settlement and avoid litigation (i.e., settle with me now on this patent infringement, because if you force me to take it to trial, I will search for everyone else you infringed and bring them in as witnesses and future clients), but again you have to follow the limits of professional responsibility. However, you can't intimidate someone into settling by threatening a lawsuit with no basis in either fact or law. Patent cases are notoriously expensive in terms of litigation/discovery costs, and they're so complex that it's hard for a third party to tell when they are completely without merit until the case is underway.

Let's say Carreon Industries and Oatmeal Tech both make cell phones. Any tech expert could tell you that Oatmeal's phones are nothing like Carreon's patents, but Carreon is a bigger company and wants to put Oatmeal out of business. The attorney brings a meritless suit against Oatmeal because he knows that if it goes to trial, Oatmeal will be forced to spend nearly as much as Carreon on expert witnesses and other litigation costs, or they may lose the case, and even once Oatmeal wins the case (which will likely be years later), they won't recover a cent of their legal costs (there are only a few types of civil cases where the law states the winning party can recover legal costs.) Oatmeal folds because they couldn't afford to sink $10 million dollars in legal costs, while Carreon easily spent $20 million, had another $30 million ready to burn, and expects to make another $100 million over the next few years with their main competitor out of business.

According to the rules of professional ethics in most states, Carreon's attorney had a moral obligation to refuse to take the case as soon as he realized that the case had no merit, the client knew the case had no merit, and the client wanted to file a frivolous lawsuit anyway in order to either extort a settlement or put the competition out of business. Your obligation to zealously represent your client ends when your client asks you to do something unethical.

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That makes sense if you consider criminal cases...no one should have to have their fate decided in court without knowledge of the law that is being used to judge them. Any accused should have a right to an attorney.

On the other side of the coin, we have folks like Carreon. FJ approached him, told him what happened and what they wanted done, and Carreon accepted the job. It is this voluntary acceptance that makes him complicit in shaking down someone his client clearly wronged. He's not a public defender and he's not trying to help someone that might have been fucked over. He volunteered for this knowing full well what he would be doing and what money and publicity he might get out of it. That is what makes him such a piece of shit.

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You know, painting everyone with the same brush is the philosophical basis of racism. Those big group names don't actually exist as living, breathing entities. They are just concepts in your mind. In every country, every religion, every profession, there are individuals, each unique and deserving of human rights. There is not a better lawyer in the world than Charles Carreon. He is the smartest person I know. And I'm a fan of such illustrious persons as Thomas Paine, and Ralph Nader. So that's really saying something.

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And, oh! ... That business called the "Internet." Ditto the same argument for that. It doesn't actually exist. Only persons with responsibility for their actions. You think you won't get caught? But you'll catch yourselves. Just like a soldier who sticks a gun to his head because he killed someone.

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I also find it sort of funny that almost all the continents end up opposite to oceans. Other than Antartica/Northern North America, the only other continents that seem to over lap are South America and Asia.

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You think you can just tell a lawyer to stop doing his job? What kind of madness has seized you? You think you can say "Boo!" and make the law go away? I think you've been in virtual reality for way too long. Word: There's a real world out there. Go smell the flowers.

Re: Finally, we'll answer the old question

Theoretically, you'd only be able to dig down to the center of the planet, once you reach the center you'd need to start digging up since the whole "up/down" concept is relative to force of gravity.

On another note, if you ever need to build a secure base, build it at the North Pole. That way the only way your enemies can attack you is from the South. =P (Or the other way around if you build at the South Pole)

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Is that a pun, "beacon of intelligence"? You know, like Timothy Leary wrote "The Intelligence Agents"? "Intelligence" has at least two distinctly different meanings. And at least one of them goes backwards on itself, like an ourorbos. Like Jung and all the other freemasons said, "You got ta reconcile those opposites!" Which is why the OSS's motto was "To reason is treason."

If there are any "intelligent" people here, do you think you could get to work finding out if Matthew Robert Inman is related to Bobby Ray Inman? Perhaps he's a grandson. The Net has been thoroughly scrubbed of any personal information on Matthew, and that's such a sign, ya know? When you can't find anyone from his past talking about their childhood, or something that happened when they went to high school, and no parents, or brothers and sisters. And -- I mean, I don't want to jump to conclusions -- but they look almost exactly alike! It could be a coincidence, but it would be really nice to know one way or the other. Couldn't one of you hack Bobby Ray Inman's personal computer -- I DIDN'T SAY THAT! -- and find out the truth for us? It could make the world of difference!

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Like I was REALLY surprised when I found out that Arthur Lovell, who wrote "Ars Vivendi," which is a "vril" classic, as in "The Vril Society," as in Adolph Hitler, that he is related to James "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr., the NASA astronaut of Apollo 13. So often, the famous people who are put before our eyes in society are children of "intelligence" agents. And while you think you're cozying up with one of the underdogs, he's actually an elite in disguise.

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But we wouldn't want to doubt for one second the testimony of our so-called "friends." You know, you can actually learn to tell who a person really is if you study philosophy. Then you can read their language, and categorize it appropriately, and know if they're working for the FBI. Their real views sneak out when they're not paying attention. Not that Matthew Inman is hiding anything. I mean, he's putting people into woodchippers, and showing you the bloody mess that comes out the other end. He's right out there, but because people don't know philosophy, they don't seem to recognize that he's a sadist.

Matt Inman talks about a lot of cartoonists he emulates, but he's no Gary Larson! He reminds me more than anything of Al Capp, and I'm pretty sure he was part of the conspiracy to kill John Lennon. He came to him and Yoko just before he died, and ridiculed the hell out of him. Got a big kick out of it, he did.

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No, I'd want to hire a lawyer who wouldn't bring further shame and humiliation upon my website.

Do you really believe Carreon's "pay up or else you get sued" shakedown tactics and baseless "you hacked me!" accusations against The Oatmeal make him look like a competent civil litigator who supports every aspect of the First Amendment?

Self defamation

Not a question of which side of the line this is on

You "could" argue which side of the defamation line this is on, in much the same way that a man "could" fly by flapping his arms; the only way you could end up being right is by completely changing the definition of the word and in the meanwhile you'd look like a complete jackass.

Inman's statements have been in the form of purposefully humorous and over-the-top rants. This is a flat statement by a lawyer with no additional creative component that purely suggests that Inman is part of a conspiracy to - at the very least - violate the CFAA. There is not even a question of intent: the statement could only have been made with the express purpose of defaming Inman.

He should absolutely sue. This whole thing has been stupid, but nothing so far even compares to a lawyer threatening a meritless defamation case blatantly and unarguably defaming the victim of his extortion claim.

*contents of this post are purely opinions. There is no way to conclusively tell if Charles Carreon is intelligent enough to be accused of defamation: it is quite possible he doesn't know what words mean.

Re: Not a question of which side of the line this is on

You "could" argue which side of the defamation line this is on, in much the same way that a man "could" fly by flapping his arms; the only way you could end up being right is by completely changing the definition of the word and in the meanwhile you'd look like a complete jackass.

Inman's statements have been in the form of purposefully humorous and over-the-top rants. This is a flat statement by a lawyer with no additional creative component that purely suggests that Inman is part of a conspiracy to - at the very least - violate the CFAA. There is not even a question of intent: the statement could only have been made with the express purpose of defaming Inman.

Eh. Inman qualifies as a public figure, in which case the bar is significantly higher. He'd have to show not only that Carreon's statements were false, but done with malicious intent. That might be hard to prove to any satisfaction. I just don't see it as defamatory.

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What both of them have done is not defamatory.

Though Carreon's statement which is on his official and professional practising attorney's website is very much bordering on ethical & professional misconduct since he is acting as counsel in a matter that is against Inman.

At the very least he needs to be censured by his State abr association, though I think the amount of attorneys in the USA who are speaking out publicly about what he has done and shining the sunlight on his actions (and his clients actions) speaks volumes more than an ethical violation decision could.

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I suppose that the real question is whether it's reasonable to assume that Carreon truly believes that Inman is orchestrating some conspiracy to attack Carreon's site; I suppose the obvious answer is - given his apparent cluelessness to how public opinion works on the Internet - that yes, he really does, and then I have to agree that you are (admittedly, rather expectedly) correct. I'd be lying though if I said I wouldn't take some sort of satisfaction from seeing Carreon testify in court that he truly understands so little that he thought Inman was secretly exhorting people to wage "security attacks".

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Really, you guys are amazing! You don't know anything, but you just talk and talk and talk. Is that a guy thing? You gotta look tough all the time? To give yourself the energy to make a living and maybe support your family? I remember reading some super-fascist once -- I can't remember who -- I read a lot of that kind of thing -- and he said that no one has the right to criticize a man in action! Ha ha ha ha ha. Did you know there is a cult of "action"? It's a fascinating topic! It's all about whether we are going to be "actors" or "thinkers." IT's deep, deep philosophy.

Re: Dumb and Dumber has a new sequel!

Who would believe that all of a sudden, idiots on the Internet would start attacking a lawyer for serving a 3-page letter asking someone to take down a hate page based on the completely wrong opinion that they are thieves if someone posts a picture on their site. Then Matthew Inman makes thieves everywhere he goes when he posts his own pictures on the Internet. Kind of like Monsanto, who will grind you into the ground if their seed gets into your field. Do you control the freaking wind? The insects, the bugs, the animals who shit their seed out in your field? Hey, all of us good girls know whose side YOU'RE on!

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1.) The Oatmeal's rebuttal to Carreon's shakedown threat hardly makes for a "hate page".
2.) The owners of FunnyJunk made money from their site while hosting unauthorized uploads of The Oatmeal's comics, then dragged their heels about getting rid of the comics until The Oatmeal put a spotlight on their behavior. You could argue that FunnyJunk stole profit from The Oatmeal. (I don't think you'd win that argument, but you could make it.)
3.) Yes, Inman posts his own original works on his website and through the rest of the Internet.
4.) I honestly have no clue what you said in the rest of your batshit insane rant. Purple monkey dishwasher.

Ow... Ow... Ow...

"When the sage inflicts injury upon himself by striking his head with a hammer, he wisely discards the hammer in favor of a bigger hammer. Thus may the sage ascertain how large a hammer he is able to lift without assistance."

The word "lawyer" may be substituted where the gentle reader finds it appropriate to do so.

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Don't you think it would be a really good thing, considering the state of the Internet right now, especially as illustrated by this event, if some rules were made about cyberbullying and mob incitement so that you or your friends and loved ones, and fellow citizens don't ever have to experience an attack like this? I'm telling you, it has been intense! Things are out of control on the Internet. The FBI is riling kids up, making them hack and "occupy," so they can crack a few heads. It's so much funner that way, for them, you know. Otherwise life is a little boring. You got to get into sophisticated sadism to understand their game: They make friends with you, and then stab you in the back. I'm kind of an afficionado of the CIA, myself, and study them intensely. One Delta Force leader said, "They'll have you crawl way out on a limb and then saw off the branch." They love to f*ck their own people. I mean, just look at what they did to Dr. Olson! They threw him out a freakin' window!

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And Gunther Russbacher. They wiped his mind because he flew Bush to Paris for "The October Surpise." If you ever had any doubt whether they could actually do that, the answer is Gunther Russbacher. I know you guys don't know anything, but I would recommend you start studying now. I'd start in the mid-1800s to discover the forces behind our current world. But then, if you skip "The Ancients," you won't know anything. Of particular importance are: (1) Pythagoras, (2) Plato ... going into the middle ages (3) Dante, (4) Paracelsus ... hitting the renaissance (5) Christian Rosencreutz ... (6) study Jewish racism in Russia in the mid-1850s, and the Catholic response thereto ... (7) Edward Bulwer Lytton in England in the same time period, (8)of course Newton, (9) of course everything in the modern age was because of Darwin, and (10) you can't miss out on the Jewish Nazis.

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No, I don't unless those rules also apply to Mr. Carron and his attempts to stifle expression (however positive or negative) with baseless legal threats.

So, let's make some rules that cover cyberbullying and mob incitement and make sure cyberbullying includes making threats designed to intimidate someone to stop using their constitutionally-guaranteed rights to free expression.

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Oh, really! Who can even stand this retardation? You call yourselves "tech" guys? I don't even want to talk to people who don't have the guts to say their names. You beat your breasts anonymously, because you don't want to be responsible for your speech. But you're going to claim it's "free." I know, I know, "Fascist free," free without responsibility. You guys are boring, full of stereotypes and stupid anger. You say the same things over and over and over again. It's like a mutual appreciation society here. You wouldn't know what to do in a world where you stood alone with your own opinions. If your homies weren't nodding along with you, you'd feel utterly lost. And I bet you call yourselves "men."

How about something specific? First a name, then your position on violence, so that the whole world can hear. What do you think are the consequences of imagining bad things happening to other people? The consequences of drawing bad things happening to other people? The consequences of doing bad things to other people? Is there any connection between them? Does one lead to the other? Would you teach your children these thoughts?

What about humor? Is it rational, or does it have a peculiar way of getting under the radar, going straight for the emotional centers, the centers conditioned by a lifetime of hearing canned laughter on TV? Going to a place of automatic acceptance where thoughts are forbidden?

Put yourself on the line here, and state your opinion, so we can all discuss it. Because this ad hominem shit is boring.

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First,.... my name is attached to my profile. (I'll assume that the silence I hear after you read that is you blushing in embarrassment).

Second, my position on violence should be clear--I am against all forms of violence and abuse especially from those that have greater power than others. For example, lawyers that should know and support the law, rather than find ways to pervert it to stifle speech.

I am also for the proper application of liability. I don't think baseball bat makers should be accountable for ruffians beating people with them, video games for violence, movies for smoking, or discussion forums for the exchange of illicit information. Nor do I think that those that take advantage of free expression should be held accountable when others engage in bad acts that may or may not be related.

I believe in free will and a bad act is the responsibility of those engaging in it and words do not suffice as a proximate cause.

I will ignore the rest of your post other than to point out that for someone so focused on "ad hominem" you might want to a) note that there was no such "attack on the person" in my prior post, b) there were plenty of "attacks on the person" in your own post, and c) "check yourself before you wreck yourself."

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I like the "drama" part, but I'm FIRMLY OPPOSED to monarchy. Did you know we share all of our "intelligence" with Britain? They were the first to get the news of 9/11. Though I'm sure the Mossad had it before it even happened, LOL!

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That's because you're an idiot. Don't you actually want to know something true in your life? I mean, why spout shit you have no idea of? (My husband would chide me and say: "of which you have no idea." Sometimes it sounds better to put the preposition at the end of the sentence, I say.)

This nonsense has gone on long enough. I posted this statement at Forbes, but I'll say it again here: "The law is like math; it has an exactitude about it that is not friendly to irrational, mindless, stabbing in the dark." You're deluding yourself that anyone thinks you're cool. You're just stupid.

Re: Re:

"The law is like math; it has an exactitude about it that is not friendly to irrational, mindless, stabbing in the dark."

This is a very silly assertion. The law is nothing of the sort.

1 + 1 = 2, 3 x 3 = 9, et cetera. There's no debating these things.

But we could spend hours, days, years, debating the proper application of a statute, the correct interpretation of a constitutional clause/amendment, what a reasonably prudent person is, or the efficacy of a judicial opinion (this is a short list of what it is to practice law). Different views on the same issue doesn't mean one is right and the rest are wrong -- more times than not there's an exception or reasonable counter-position to the prevailing rule.

. . . .

Now having said that, let me just opine on the petulant, ass-damp lawyering we're witnessing from Mr. Carreon -- it betrays minimal competency and is rife with frivolity. Maybe an exception to my assertion above, which kind of drives my original point home.

A while back I thought that it would be fitting and would make a teachable moment if, as a way of protesting automated DCMA takedowns, someone automated DCMA takedowns en masse, taking down every bit of content at some site. But that would be illegal and unethical so I don't recommend it, and there's no one who really deserves that kind of treatment anyway.

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You know, DMCA notices are not that bad. I get them all the time. You take down the content for 10 days, and if the claim of copyright infringement is in error, you put the content back up! So you lost 10 days, big deal. Now it'll be up forever.

How?!

How is someone this clueless able to carry on in his day to day business or even life?

He basically walked up to a wasp nest, whacked it with a stick, and then just stands there acting shocked that he got stung for his trouble.

He sends a $20K shakedown letter, I can understand that, he's a lawyer and he's been hired to do that, but to then try and shut down a fundraiser in what can only be spite... and then to act surprised that that last bit didn't go over too well. Just blows the mind someone apparently (previously) successful could be this lacking in common sense.

Re: How?!

Ha ha ha. You think the law accords with your "common sense"? What do you think about this idea? That in order to protect the donors to a cause, the fundraiser must be an authorized representative of the charity? Do you think it's against "common sense" to want to protect investors? I bet you never thought of that before! That's the problem with ignorance: the true thing is what you don't know. Only one answer for this problem: Study! Instead of this stupid blogging that you do.

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My feet are my own, thank you. And nobody tells me what to say. Charles is a great writer and lawyer, poet, musician, actor, stand-up comedian, but he can't compete with me in the political and philosophical field. And it's time for women to stand up and start talking, absolutely everywhere. Have you ever noticed how they are always hiding away in their houses? They hardly ever come out in public, except to go to the mall and the grocery store. I saw a beautiful young girl at SkyBar the other night, and boy could she sing. She was so soft and lovely, she looked like you could pinch her and she'd hurt. And I thought about what kind of sick, hard, male world we live in, and I feared for her safety.

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If I could post pictures on this thread, I'd show you this really cool sign I made which is the first thing you see when you walk into our house: "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees." It's about 15 feet long. Yeah, and incorporates this cool Frida Kahlo white-gloved hand pointing to the saying. I used to be a Tibetan Buddhist, and when I got out after 22 years in a cult, I drew this really cool picture of the Statue of Liberty standing on a lotus, with Rudi Gernreich dakinis pointing in her direction.

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I'm really good at broken tile mosaic, too. I love Antonio Gaudi. When we went to Barcelona, we spent like an hour filming the mosaic-curving-bench in the main square. I don't know why that reminded me of Buckminster Fuller. Another great guy, what can I say?

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Actually you do know when it is going to be deleted, they post warning of it.
They also point out that the article is lacking citations from reputable locations and looks like it was written by the subject or someone close to the subject.
And as of me posting the original comment his article hadn't been defaced, would you care to elaborate or is this just something you see in your mind?

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You know, I really try to refrain from calling people names. I have a saying, "Violence and ad hominem are the last refuge of the incompetent." I think it's a good one, don't you think. Or perhaps, you are an advocate of violence, like all the rest of you here.

If there are any girls reading this, I will say the same thing I said on the Richard Dawkins board, which caused an Internet gang-bang against me which didn't make my statement any less true: "Evolution is in our hands. Don't mate with the violent. It will only turn against you. And it's really hard to get away from an abusive mate. Lots of times they get killed on the courthouse steps right when they're filing for divorce." I mean, look at what happened to the wife of William "Will" Inman: He garroted her and stuck her in a septic tank. I'm sure the other Inman could make a cool picture from that image that you would all love. Why not get into snuff films while you're at it?

Re: The internets... he is doing it wrong...

Re: The internets... he is doing it wrong...

You don't know what "cool" is. When I first met Charles at ASU in 1974 after I came back from a semester at the Hebrew University, it was in a class of -- shit! -- it was a whole auditorium full of people. The teacher was lecturing on Jackson Pollock. Some guy in the middle (I was on the back row) raised his hand and asked a question. A conversation ensued, and then the teacher asked him to come up and take over the lecture. As soon as I heard his voice, I was in love. I couldn't even see what he looked like! I waited at the door, until the very last person came out, because he was so besieged with people wanting to talk to him, and he was the cutest thing I ever saw in his shorts, his Mexican shirt, his green-glass Afghani necklace and shoes with the leather shoelaces perpetually untied. Sometimes a girl just KNOWS when her guy appears.

And walking down the sidewalk was like, "Hey, Charles." "Hey, Charles, how ya doin'." "Hey, Charles." Never stopping. The most famous people at ASU: football stars, big beautiful black guys, all the beautiful people LOVED him.

Re: Re: The internets... he is doing it wrong...

So, will all those character references come pouring in after they learn about Charles' shakedown scheme, or will you ask for them before you tell all those people who "loved him" about how he tried to get an artist to pay $20,000 for the offense of asking a website hosting his work without his consent to take those works down?

You guys are Internet terrorists. Do you work for the FBI, like Anonymous? Doing hits on the good guys? You're no better than a lynch mob for the KKK. "Continuing to lash out" -- you guys sound like the Mafia. "You're just not getting it, but we're going to teach you a lesson," said a guy who just called on the phone from China.

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You rang?

Please support your statement of him being a good guy, show references without trying to quote ancient texts not relevant to the current situation. Try to refrain from adding in deranged thoughts about mind control and the like.

He sent a letter that had no real basis in the law.
He demanded money not due to him or his client in an attempt to scare a settlement to a lawsuit he would lose.
He was schooled by a much better lawyer, and then in a huff attempted to destroy a charity fundraiser.
He then attempts to cast himself as the victim of some organized attack being run by someone who doesn't care about him.
He then doubled down on his claims, and runs dangerously close to finding himself sued for defamation.

Maybe the first couple of times he was suspended from the bar wasn't enough for him to learn.

So spin your conspiracy theory all you'd like, all of the resulting actions are caused by his actions and not some drone army controlled by someone he targeted with an ill conceived letter.

If you are infact his other half he might need to take away your internet connection because your not helping.

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deranged lunatic

Having experienced this kind of irrationality firsthand (though not to this extent,) I have nothing but pity for the Carreons. Their behavior represents everything that I loathe/fear about my own genetic makeup.

At this point I can only see a downward spiral in their near future. To any sane person here, these rantings may be a source of bewilderment and cheap entertainment, but to me they represent a full-blown tragedy in the making.

Here we have two very well educated people who aren't stupid, merely unable to see reason. If their condition(s) are at all similar to mine, then the only way for them to recover from this episode would be to sever themselves from the trigger. i.e. Public criticism.

I don't think this will happen. The Internet is ruthless and never forgets. This will ruin their lives forever. They aren't stupid, just irrationally convinced that they are right. They literally can't consider the possibility that they might have made a mistake. To do so could cause a depressive episode that might very well be lethal. So in a way, this self-destructive behavior is a twisted form of self-preservation.

Disclosure: IANAP
This shit could happen to me someday and it terrifies the hell out of me.

Re: deranged lunatic

Charles is a genius. He was reading Tolstoy in Russian when he was just barely four years old. He skipped five grades, but then only four, because everyone in his class was so much bigger than him. To survive, he had to become very witty.

Re: deranged lunatic

Re: deranged lunatic

The problem is: you aren't us. We're like Thelma and Louise. Charles is Louise -- he doesn't mind taking the persona of a girl -- and I'm Thelma, a little fast on the trigger. Except that I don't believe in suicide under any circumstances. It's all because of my philosophy which I developed after being heavily involved in a Death Cult. It's totally original: "For all practical purposes, we do exist. In fact, we NEED to exist in order to have human rights. Otherwise, forget about it." And then I have a little thing I call "The tautological nature of the mind."

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That's me above, posting a little piece of a poem in response to "holy deranged lunatic." You know what my problem is? I just refuse to drink the poisonous water. I don't care if the King drinks it or not!

ah, mike, the eternal hypocrite, funnyjunk is just sharing culture, something you are all about, but yet, you side with oatmeal, in that funnyjunk is stealing from oatmeal, and they should stop this

when all funnyjunk did was remind oatmeal, they are not responsible for what the users upload, and did not take lightly being called a thief by oatmeal, and you agree with that right??, since you side with megaupload about users did the infringement, not that fat piece of shit kim

but yet here you flip flop faster than obama, you are now aginst the ones sharing culture and are for them being bullied by oatmeal, telling them to stop trying to protect themselves and just be quiet

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FunnyJunk's owners do not have legal liability for what the site's users posts -- unless they know those users have infringed upon someone's copyright and continue to host the infringing content anyway.

The site's owners knew content from The Oatmeal existed on FunnyJunk due to his original complaints, and instead of taking action to protect his copyright (which Matthew Inman has a full right to do under the law), they allowed his content to continue getting reposted to their site.

I support sharing and remixing, and I support copyright reform from the ground up, but I also support following the law -- and since FunnyJunk users infringed upon Inman's copyrights and the site owners did nothing about it despite knowing Inman had filed requests to have his content taken off the site, I'd say FunnyJunk's owners should find themselves on the hook for civil copyright infringement.

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Here's the proper understanding. I know, because I'm an Internet librarian, of the only library on the Internet that openly posts copyrighted works. You can write the book yesterday, and I can put it up today. Because there's a library exemption to copyright. There's also a fair use exemption to copyright. But anyway, to DMCA.

You have a site like me, you put up content, or in the case of other sites that allow content to be posted, others put up content. Some copyright owner thinks it infringes his copyright. He sends a DMCA notice. I have to take the content down for 10 days. Then I put it back up.

But if no one sends you a DMCA notice, no law is broken. For me, running a library, it's simply a formality I have to follow, because I always put the content back up. Once a woman wrote to me and said, "Take down my content(generic)on your site." I wrote back to her, and said, "What content? Where?" I'm not going to read my whole damn site! I have over a million files. That was before I had a search engine. But even if I had a search engine, I wouldn't take the trouble of searching her name. It's not my responsibility. Either she points to the specific content, or fuck her. She wrote me back again, with the same bullshit. At that point, I did tell her to go jump off a cliff. And that was the end of it.

Point being, no DMCA notice, no responsibility for content. From what I've heard, Matt Inman never sent ANY DMCA notices. So there was never any violation of his copyright. Violations only occur with a DMCA notice? Capiche.

Will that end this stupid conversation? Obviously no, because you guys are way too attached to your ignorance. Ignorance is just so much fun for the ignorant. It all goes back to the tautological nature of the mind.

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Neereerneer doesn't come into it, Mr. Neerneerneer. That's a great example of the tautological nature of the mind. You imagine it in me, and suddenly it's in you!!! LOL!

Petulant doesn't come into it. How I sound doesn't come into it. It's simply a matter of conforming to the DMCA guidelines. Who or what I am is irrelevant. Keep your eye on the ball, or get hit in the head.

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Here's the proper understanding. I know, because I'm an Internet librarian, of the only library on the Internet that openly posts copyrighted works. You can write the book yesterday, and I can put it up today. Because there's a library exemption to copyright. There's also a fair use exemption to copyright. But anyway, to DMCA.

There is no "library exemption to copyright."

You have a site like me, you put up content, or in the case of other sites that allow content to be posted, others put up content. Some copyright owner thinks it infringes his copyright. He sends a DMCA notice. I have to take the content down for 10 days. Then I put it back up.

That's not how the DMCA works. You seem to have left out the whole counternotice part. Also, if you're putting up the content yourself, as you suggest, that the DMCA safe harbors do not apply. They only apply to content post by others on your site.

But if no one sends you a DMCA notice, no law is broken.

This is simply not true. The law can absolutely be broken without a DMCA notice being sent.

For me, running a library, it's simply a formality I have to follow, because I always put the content back up.

You probably shouldn't admit that in public, because that sentence will likely be used against you when someone seeks to prove you don't deserve DMCA safe harbor protections.

From what I've heard, Matt Inman never sent ANY DMCA notices. So there was never any violation of his copyright. Violations only occur with a DMCA notice? Capiche.

This is, simply speaking, 100% wrong. What might be more accurate is that without DMCA notices, the chance of any liability being placed on the host is minimized. However, it has no bearing (at all) on whether or not there was direct infringement or if the original poster is liable for infringement.

I would suggest understanding the difference between direct infringement and secondary infringement, because that appears to be a large gap in your understanding of the DMCA.

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Sorry, it is YOU have a large gap in YOUR understanding of the DMCA. I didn't talk about counternotification because it was irrelevant to the case at hand. Since Matt Inman never sent a DMCA notice, there was no need for counternotification, if counternotification had been deemed necessary.

Spare me your ignorant warnings. I'm advised by the best DMCA lawyer on the Net.

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Since Matt Inman never sent a DMCA notice, there was no need for counternotification, if counternotification had been deemed necessary.

Maybe Inman asked Funnyjunk to take down his content while assuming the site's owners would want to do the right thing and avoid looking like assholes by prompting legitimate legal action against them.

Nobody wants to sue others (or get sued). Lawsuits suck. Inman went to Funnyjunk and asked the site to take down his content to avoid starting legal action against the site. He wouldn't have needed to file a DMCA if the site's owners had acted like decent people and taken his content down when he asked them to.

Now Inman has to deal with potential legal action on Chucky C's behalf because Chuck thought his "shakedown" routine would work on Inman.

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I know, because I'm an Internet librarian, of the only library on the Internet that openly posts copyrighted works.

I'll take a shot in the dark here: you either post works with the permission of the authors, post works whose authors have passed on (and have no estate to handle their copyright), post orphaned/public domain works, post works covered by Creative Commons licenses, or don't post anything that you know would bring a copyright lawsuit from a major publisher down on your head. Did I land in the ballpark, or knock it out of the stadium?

There's a library exemption to copyright. There's also a fair use exemption to copyright.

Yes, but the Internet doesn't exist as a library (and I doubt you'd find any litigator willing to make the argument in a court of law), and Fair Use only goes so far.

You have a site like me, you put up content, or in the case of other sites that allow content to be posted, others put up content. Some copyright owner thinks it infringes his copyright. He sends a DMCA notice. I have to take the content down for 10 days. Then I put it back up.

If a copyright holder files a DMCA takedown notification, the content targeted by the takedown notice must come down for good unless the person or website targeted by the notice files a counternotification. The person/website can return the content to its former published status only if the copyright holder does not decide to pursue further legal action ten days after receiving the counternotification.

The DMCA takedown system works as a "notice, takedown, and counternotice" system, not as a "notice, fuck you, content goes back up in ten days" system. You may wish to restudy the language involving the DMCA's notification system.

If no one sends you a DMCA notice, no law is broken.

Under your logic, if no one sees me execute a person with a gunshot to the back of the head, I haven't broken any laws.

As you can see, your logic contains a major flaw.

Once a woman wrote to me and said, "Take down my content(generic)on your site." I wrote back to her, and said, "What content? Where?" I'm not going to read my whole damn site! I have over a million files. That was before I had a search engine. But even if I had a search engine, I wouldn't take the trouble of searching her name. It's not my responsibility. Either she points to the specific content, or fuck her.

This marks the only point in this whole rant where I agree with you.

Point being, no DMCA notice, no responsibility for content.

Your logic once again has flaws. If you willingly serve up copyrighted content that you know people want taken down, you could either have a sense of goddamned human decency and take the content down (once the author points directly to it) or you can look like an entitled ass and keep it up under the "you didn't send me a DMCA notice so I didn't break the law" logic you spouted earlier.

Ignorance of the law, whether yours or someone else's, does not excuse you from following the law -- or even acting like a decent person.

From what I've heard, Matt Inman never sent ANY DMCA notices. So there was never any violation of his copyright.

Inman did not have to send DMCA notices for someone to have violated his copyright. According to the US-recognized Berne Convention, his works all have copyright upon publication, and anyone who knowingly reposts his works -- or hosts copies of his works -- without his permission has infringed upon his copyright. The DMCA didn't magically change the law to strip people of their copyrights unless they used the DMCA's takedown system.

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1. No, you're not at all in the ballpark! You're as far from it as you can get.

2. Do you know how far fair use goes? Why don't you discuss that issue, and tell us all you know.

3. With a library, the DMCA process IS notice, counternotice, and putting the content back up. I've been doing it for 12 years. If it was bad, don't you think I would have been taken down by now. Penguin just keeps losing and losing and losing, and eventually they are going to lose for good. Knock on wood.

4. Your gunshot analogy does not apply. The law is made. It is what it is.

5. There's something called "notice" that's very important in the law. People can't be called into court unless they are "served." That's what the DMCA notice is all about. No blame until service. That's the rule, despite you apparently wanting it to be different.

So you're arguing a lot of analogies that don't apply. Again, sad to think that your pride demands that you be right and me be wrong, when the fact is, I'm right and you're wrong. You think because you're a man, I should stand down? Not a chance, honey.

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No, you're not at all in the ballpark! You're as far from it as you can get.

So you post content that you know can bring a lawsuit or other legal action down on you. Gotcha.

Let me go see if I can find out who holds the rights to all the copyrighted, non-public doman, non-Creative Commons books you have up on your site; I bet those rightsholders would love to know that you've reprinted their protected works without their permission.

Do you know how far fair use goes? Why don't you discuss that issue, and tell us all you know.

Last I checked, Fair Use doesn't involve reprinting books in their entirety on the Internet and calling yourself a "library" in order to escape copyright law. Like Mr. Masnick said above: no "library" exemption exists in copyright.

With a library, the DMCA process IS notice, counternotice, and putting the content back up.

You didn't initially say you needed a counternotice to put the content back up. And I quote:

“Some copyright owner thinks it infringes his copyright. He sends a DMCA notice. I have to take the content down for 10 days. Then I put it back up.”

I see no mention of the counternotice aspect of the takedown system. You can backpedal all you want, but that doesn't erase your own words.

The law is made. It is what it is.

Under the Berne Convention and all applicable United States copyright law, copying a copyrighted work in its entirety without the permission of the copyright holder for a purpose not covered under Fair Use statutes/case law represents an infringement of copyright law, even if you do not receive a DMCA notification. The law is made. It is what it is.

There's something called "notice" that's very important in the law. People can't be called into court unless they are "served."

Going back to my gunshot analogy: if I murder someone (not out of self-defense or any other "justifiable" reasoning) and I don't get arrested for it, that does not mean I haven't committed murder -- I simply haven't gotten caught. I still committed the overt act of murder, regardless of whether or not anyone saw me or the police and the courts can prove I did it.

The law is made. It is what it is.

No blame until service. That's the rule, despite you apparently wanting it to be different.

A copyright holder can blame a site for breaking his copyright all he wants. Blame without a legal notification happens all the time.

No legal liability falls upon a service provider until a DMCA lands in their inbox, though. At that point, the service provider must comply or risk losing its DMCA safe harbor and find itself legally liable for allowing (or potentially inducing) copyright infringment.

The law is made. It is what it is.

sad to think that your pride demands that you be right and me be wrong

I will openly and willingly admit to having my facts wrong when you can disprove what I've said here beyond any doubt.

You think because you're a man, I should stand down?

Your gender holds no relevance to your argument.

Your skewed reading of several important pieces of copyright law do, though.

Re: Re:

You can imagine what you think the world should be like -- I advocate creative, positive visualization that can lead us to a better place in the future, a better place in your mind right now for that matter -- but there's no sense in imagining it to be real. You may want the law to be one way, but that doesn't make it so. Certainly there are plenty of judges who have this same problem, and refuse to follow the law. But mostly, they get overturned on appeal.

When we lived in Oregon, lawyers would come to listen to Charles' arguments in the courtroom, and you could see them gradually slinking down into their chairs and covering their faces with horror at what they heard him saying. They would NEVER have the guts to say that to a judge.

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He likes to do accents. He's really good at Indian accents. We went to India in 1975 and 1976, and had a good old time, chasing kids around the Red Fort for throwing rocks at us, and experiencing the world of "maximum" on trains that were so crowded that people were standing on top of each other. He also likes to do cowboy accents. Once, in a closing argument in Portland, he broke out into a cowboy movie that had everyone with their mouths hanging open. He won the case.

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Yeah. He does crazy things that blow people's minds. Because he has a LARGE view of the situation. Just try to laugh at him, and he will put you right in your place. He has a photographic memory. He picks up books he read when he was 9 years old to find a passage he wants to read to me, flips through a few pages, and almost always finds the passage within about one minute.

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He does crazy things that blow people's minds.

Do you have footage of him becoming a cowboy movie?

I've never seen a guy become a cowboy movie. Does he transform into a whole movie theater, or just the reels and projection screen? Which cowboy movie does he become? Does he become a cowboy movie with the expressed consent of the copyright holder for said movie?

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Charles refreshed my recollection of the facts after I told him about this exchange. He found your lack of faith disturbing. Charles reminded me of following facts, and corrected me on several points. To keep the record straight, I pass them on to you:
Subject:
Closing argument in the Multnomah County Circuit Court case of Ann Robins v. Felix Capo and Linda Kay.
Trial Judge: Hon. Anna Brown (now elevated to the US District Court of Oregon)
Opposing Counsel: Former Oregon State Bar Litigation Section head Denny Rawlinson of Miller Nash appearing for plaintiff Ann Robins.
Nature of the Case: Capo and Kay sued for $800,000 for allegedly absconding with the proceeds of the construction fund for a mobile-home development.
Carreon's Defense: The mobile-home development ran short of cash because Robins underfunded it, and in order to deflect blame for claims by home buyers who didn't get the homes they paid for, she was falsely accusing Carreon's clients of "conversion," i.e., theft.
Closing Argument: Charles delivered his closing in a folksy, cowboy style, beginning with "Miz Robins, she owns most everything 'round here. Now Miz Kay, she's a mighty hard workin' woman, make a profit from most anything she turn her hand to. Now Felix Capo, he's like a long, cool drifter, with a smile that would charm most anyone. Miz Robins she decides to send 'em out on the road with the wagon, sellin' goods for her for a share of what they sell ... etc.
Result: Verdict for Robins, far below damages sought: $20,000 against Kay, $100,000 against Capo.

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Could you tell me exactly what you think is "fucking nuts"? The 1, 2, 3 of your belief. I would love to start talking about specifics. Or are you just an anonymous bomb thrower? Totally lacking in sincerity?

Oh, and one more thing about DMCA notices. It has to be in the proper format. Sometimes people just send letters to me asking me to take down their stuff. Guess what? No banana! We either ignore them, or tell them to send a proper DMCA notice. The law doesn't judge you unless you don't take the content down for 10 days AFTTER a PROPER DMCA notice has been sent. None of these things exist for Matt Inman. Now you want to grant him victim status? That's nothing but madness, bias, prejudice, and stupidity.

Re:

The law doesn't judge you unless you don't take the content down for 10 days AFTER a PROPER DMCA notice has been sent.

Under the DMCA, you must take down any content listed in a proper takedown notification as soon as possible -- and keep it down unless the copyright holder does not respond to a proper counternotification after ten days.

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Wrong. The copyright holder's response to my counternotification is irrelevant. If they want to sue me, then sue me. But nobody has yet, except for Penguin. And as I said, they've just been losing all along the way. Ralph Nader's group Public Citizen represented us at one crucial point. I just love Ralph Nader.

You know, I'm in litigation with Penguin Books for years and years and years now. Charles gets a lot of emails from lawyers representing themselves as "friends" -- you know, with friends like these, who needs enemies? -- who say, "Tara Carreon must be stopped!" It's all about the big shut up. Why? Because these corporations WANT you to be confused about copyright, so we'll continue to beat up on each other, and the people's fair use of copyrighted works will be slowed, obviously in THEIR favor. Think about it. If we were all clear on the subject, there'd be a lot more exercise of our rights. They don't want that. They want to own EVERYTHING! You think publishers are fair to the artists? Think again. Most artists don't even hold the copyrights on their own creative works. They have to hand it over to the publishers if they want to get their thing published. And then the publishers can pretty much do whatever they want to your work: devalue it to nothing and burn it in a pile with everyone else's books. Nobody makes money on writing books, except the very, very big guys. So by getting all anal about your copyright, basically, you are simply hiding it in the dark. I got this lesson full in the face when I was in India, and a guy had some lemons I wanted to buy. But I couldn't afford the price he wanted. He must have thought I was a rich American, but Charles and I left America to go overland to India with only $300. Nobody else could afford his proud prices, either, and as the days went by, I saw that pile of lemons shrivel, not decrease. Eventually, he was going to have to throw the whole lot away. He would have been better off giving it to us for whatever we could give. When I put up books and nobody complains, I REALLY admire those people. I only put up books I feel are important to our study. If someone complains, it just affects my whole feeling about them. I don't even like them anymore. What -- you don't believe in libraries?! Who can have respect for these kind of people? "My friends are of a finer breed," said Cyrano de Bergerac. Charles isn't the only one in the family who loves Cyrano.

LISTEN: we're not talking about RELIGION here. We're not talking about right and wrong, heaven and hell, and Christian martyrs (here the Devil Matt Inman is on the cross --that's so Illuminati!). In this country, where our Constitution allows us freedom FROM religion, some of us have taken the opportunity to be REAL atheists, not just fake gnostics like Richard Dawkins. We real atheists see this distinction better than others. With copyright infringement, we're talking about THE LAW, not religion, law made by civil servants in the legislature and in Congress, not in the Vatican.

Now appealing to people's subconscious religious conditioning, subtly transferring that understanding to a non-understanding of the law, is a real good trick for mind controllers in the pay of large corporations, in this case the Publishing Industry. It's obvious that that is what this whole story is about: the Publishing Industry. It can be compared to the Recording Industry's beat-up of mp3 file sharing. Every reporter who has written about this story has been distinctly biased from the beginning in favor of Matt Inman's bogus claim of "copyright infringement." They don't care what the lawyer Charles Carreon has to say about it. Anything he says is just to embellish their premeditated spin. Their stories start and end with threats towards Charles Carreon, and an appeal to the Internet to rise up against him. Everyone should be aware that this story broke at the very moment that the Department of Justice was settling with the Publishing Industry, led by Penguin Books, Charles and my chief nemesis, after prosecuting them for a giant conspiracy against the People to set e-book prices. We've talked a little about strategy here, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, and I would add, in sneering honor of Leo Strauss, Simonides. Remember how I said that to understand modern history you had to know about Jewish Nazis?

So when you suffer a big defeat, it's time to marshal your forces and wage another campaign. And the Matthew Inman/Oatmeal/Funnyjunk fight provided just the ammunition and fresh soldiers the Publishing Industry needed. They got all their compromised reporters lodged in various news agencies' "Internet departments," which is to say, young people who don't know anything, who aren't making REAL news, just gossiping about the Internet, to jump on this issue and make a martyr of -- who is the real martyr here? -- Charles Carreon. Matt Inman is only the COVER martyr, the mask. Every intelligence operation has to have it's covers.

Not one real reporter has considered this fracas as a story for the real world. No, this is "Internet" news. The Internet can be analogized to our unconscious, the real world to our conscious mind. Excuse me, but I've been reading a lot of the fascist Carl Jung lately. In the "Internet" things can happen that can't happen in the real world. Like transferring religious understanding to the law. What an opportunity for those who know how to use it. In this realm, you can wage a Crusade, a bloody, racist, irrational, fascist campaign, and most likely, no one will even be conscious of it. Because, as I said in a post above, people are not educated in philosophy. Not being educated in philosophy, various ideas, pro and con, positive and negative, up and down, in and out, and everything inbetween, float together randomly in a marvelous soup of potential and actual DOUBLETHINK, aka known as "reconciling the opposites."

And that's what you're doing when you decide that some entity is simply "WRONG" if someone's copyrighted works end up on their site. You don't care about DMCA, you don't care about THE LAW, you care about your campaign to transfer subconscious religious understandings to THE LAW. To the end that the very people you as the Publishing Industry are trying to control end up fighting in your own army, arguing your cause.

You get to lash back at the Department of Justice, and you attack the Carreons, one of your main enemies, who keep advocating for copyright exemptions.

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@STStone's comment that "There's a library exemption to copyright. There's also a fair use exemption to copyright."

I'll just quote the statute and add a comment and explain how it applies in the online context. Of course, you could have googled "copyright + library" and found it yourself, but that is apparently above your grade level.

Current through Pub. L. 112-128. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

" (a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if—

(1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage;

(2) the collections of the library or archives are

(i) open to the public, or

(ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and

(3) the reproduction or distribution of the work includes a notice of copyright that appears on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section, or includes a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright if no such notice can be found on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section."

At the American Buddha Online Library (ABOL), we have a notice posted that applies this section to the reproduction of transient digital copies on the user's computer, and voila, we have immunity from copyright infringement liability. No court has ever pronounced on the viability of this theory of copyright infringement immunity, and our legal counsel, Charles Carreon, has thusfar carried the day in defense litigation directed at ABOL by Penguin USA. Litigation is the test, and ABOL has passed it. Theorize in a knowledge vacuum if you are so inclined. In space, no one can hear you bloviate.

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Reading your earlier comments I was thinking someone should tell Carreon's wife that she's being impersonated by a looney on the internet, but now I'm just left feeling sorry for Charles.

I'm also left very curious to watch how Penguin v. ABOL works out. The only issue decided so far is one of jurisdiction, and ABOL lost that round at appeals. I rather expect that when all is said and done ABOL is going to get a legal thumping.

Please return our property

TaraCarreon, I feel sorry for you for not bringing God or Allah or whichever-deity-you-would-choose into this on your side. Religious nutcases have an excuse. And in many ways, it looks like you don't. Because going "Hahahaha! LOL!" at someone else's comment doesn't exactly support your admittedly rather fragile stand here and does make you look more like the most massive troll EVER or like you'r slightly off your hinges.
And if you really ARE Mr. Carreon's wife, please: Remember that love makes blind. We are all only human, after all.
Oh and that about the library exception law thing, it's nice to fianlly see something that supports your claims! Now, can you please tell me where I can find a cached verision of this law on the internet or in a real library? You shouldn't trust the Internet, you know.